Of hackers, chocolate and reputations
by I'veGotManyNames
Summary: And of a reunion that might be coincidence if you believe in that. If not, it might just be fate. Whatever it is, it wouldn't have happened if Mello hadn't shot that incompetent fool.


AN: This is just something that popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it...

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. And since Natasha doesn't appear in here, I actually own nothing.

**WARNINGS:** **Might be considered AU; language, but that was to be expected, wasn't it?**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Of hackers, chocolate and reputations

"What did you just say? "

The blonde man is furious. He seems ready to kill. Though, perhaps that is not an accurate description. He always seems ready to kill. But today it will probably be more violent than on other days. However, Rod Ross can't blame him. Not really. The hacker really messed up this time.

A loud bang echoes through the halls. And Rod looks up. _Note to self: Never let anyone incompetent near Mello again. _The Mafia boss crosses the room to see who Mello killed this time.

It's the hacker. _Figures_, the man thinks.

"What happened?" He asks the blonde.

"Fucking half of our damn system crashed! Including our surveillance cameras! And he couldn't fucking do anything about it!"

.

Mello starts raging and in the back of his mind there is a little voice that whispers that Matt wouldn't have screwed up like this. But he pushes it away and continues to rant.

"I want a new hacker! And he better be damn good or I swear to God he'll end up worse than that one!"

He whirls around to face Rod. His ice blue eyes are blazing with fury and his breathing is uneven, the gun in his hand makes him look kind of dangerous. Normally the blonde is underestimated because of his size and his rather feminine looks, but now with his gun lazily pointed to the ground and the dead hacker behind him he is undeniably dangerous. And he looks it for once.

"I don't give a shit how you do it, but I want the best damn hacker that you got. And I want him here by this time tomorrow." He has calmed down considerably by now, but the fury is still there right underneath the surface. It always is.

Mello takes a breath and reminds himself that there is no one here who will restrain him if necessary. That there is no one here who will make sure he doesn't get himself into too much trouble. Though, if there were, he probably wouldn't be here right now in the first place.

But he has a goal to achieve, he reminds himself. He will defeat Kira. And Near along the way. And by doing that he will avenge L.

Mello unconsciously straightens, before he strides out of the room a goal in mind. He needs chocolate.

.

The blonde leaves a rather worried Rod Ross behind. Not about Mello. On no, Mello can take care of himself. No the mafia boss is worried for his own safety, because Mello is rather unpredictable and he wouldn't put it past the genius to shoot Ross. So he turns and starts barking out orders, all the while wondering who the hell their best hacker is.

.

The dark room is only lit by the screens of various computers. The only sound to be heard is the clicking of the keys as a young man types furiously. His face is pale and the sun is probably just a distant memory to him.

After a while he stops typing and breathes a sigh of relief.

"Done," he whispers to himself. It has become a habit of his since he hasn't talked to anyone in a while.

His cellphone rings and he really wants to ignore it, but he can't. Not when the mafia is calling. He sighs and picks it up holding it to his ear.

"Yes?" His voice is pleasant in a way, though it's rough from smoking and rarely heard by anyone but himself.

"Mario. We've got a new job for you."

He raises an eyebrow; he only just finished his last job and has yet to notify anyone of it, so how did they know?

"What about the last one?" he asks. Better to be safe than sorry.

"It doesn't matter. We'll give it to someone else." So they're not watching him. But who is calling him anyways? He knows he's not talking to his usual contact.

"Not necessary." Calm and collected. That's him as long as he doesn't have to meet anyone in person.

"You're done?" He doesn't understand the others surprise, he's one of the best there is. Maybe even the best.

"Yes. Now that new job…" These people were supposed to be professionals, so why did they always get distracted?

"Of course. It's really important. But you'll have to go to…"

"Wait!" the young man interrupts the caller, "Is this line safe?"

The other is stunned into silence for a few seconds, then he replies.

"Yes. It's safe. It's safe." He's stuttering. Pathetic.

"Good. Just checking. Now I have to go somewhere? We both know I don't do that kind of job." He doesn't leave his apartment. Well, apart from grocery shopping, but that doesn't really count.

"You'll have to this time. It's really important." Now he's repeating himself. The caller is nervous. And the young man is intrigued.

"What is this job about?" Oh, yes, he's intrigued and he's going to be obvious about it, because expecting this… person to pick up on it when he's being subtle is probably asking too much.

"I'm… I'm not allowed to tell." He seems seriously afraid of the hacker and that surprises him, because he doesn't consider himself scary. At least not compared to some of his friends. One especially.

Don't think about it, he admonishes himself. _Don't_.

"Then, I guess, I'll have to find out for myself. Where did you say I have to go?" Why is he being nice to the person on the phone again? Oh yes, the other is scared of him and he has information.

"I didn't… but it's in LA. The job, I mean. And the boss he's… he's temperamental. And he isn't too keen on failure…" He cocks his head to the side. That's interesting.

"Anything else I should know?" Again better to be safe than sorry.

"Well, don't question him. Never question him, just do as he says. And he can't stand explaining his plans. You get them or you don't, but he doesn't explain them to you. Ever."

The young man smiles that sounds like someone he knows.

"Thanks, I'll remember that." He wonders if this 'boss' likes chocolate. He'll bring some anyway.

.

The plane ride to LA is uneventful, though he doesn't understand why he isn't allowed to bring any of his equipment. No time, they had told him, so the only thing he takes with him is his laptop.

After leaving the airport, the young man takes out his cellphone.

"Yes?" It's the voice of the same man that called him just yesterday.

"It's Mario. Where to?" He still sounds calm and collected, but he's getting decidedly nervous. Because he has to actually interact with people. Not his forte, just not.

The man tells him an address and practically begs him to hurry. He seems to be scared of what will happen if the hacker isn't on time. Something about the boss… _Definitely_ sounds like someone he knows.

However, it is highly improbable that it is anyone he knows and he wishes he wouldn't get his hopes up, but he can't help it. He can't help but dream.

Don't, the hacker tells himself. _Don't._

.

"Well?" Mello is still rather furious and the mafia members shrink and cringe under his glare.

A thick silence hangs over the room. It's filled with tension and Mello's hand hovers suspiciously close to his gun when he continues.

"Where is your precious hacker now?" And some of the more intelligent ones in the room are aware of the danger they are in. Mello has stopped using swearwords.

No one dares to say anything and you can almost grip the tension in the room. It is in no way broken when a cellphone rings. On the contrary it only worsens.

Said cellphone belongs to one of the younger mafia members and he takes it out under Mello's icy stare and presses it to his ear.

"Y…Yes?" he chokes out. His eyes nervously flitting from Mello's hand to his gun and back again.

The blonde is almost amused by the fear the older male regards him with. _Almost_.

The dead silence in the room makes it easy to hear that the caller is answering, but no one can make out the words.

The Mafioso nods hurriedly in response, even if the person on the other end of the line obviously can't see him.

"Yes. Yes. Of course. We'll have someone there shortly."

The man looks up, away from Mello's hand, but he's still too afraid of the other to meet his eyes.

"That… that was the hacker. He's h…here." He's pathetic. Most of them are really, but Mello will have to endure them in order to achieve his goals.

"Bring him in. But have him get our system up and running again first. If it's up to my standards, maybe I'll see him."

With that he storms out of the room. Hopefully someone has stocked up on chocolate since yesterday.

.

The young man stares at the remains of the system he was told to repair. His laptop is more secure than this, even when the mafia hideout's system was at its best and his laptop was in his possession for a mere ten hours.

"This has to be the worst security I've ever seen, especially considering this is supposed to be a secure system," he says to no one in particular. And, yes, he is exaggerating, but who cares?

"It's one of the best, actually", a man behind him says. He's tall, bulky and bald. He might possess some kind of intelligence, but it's nowhere near the hacker's level.

"Yeah, right. We had a more secure system where I grew up and that was a freakin' orphanage." He feels like laughing, because he didn't grow up at a normal (_common_) orphanage, but that doesn't matter.

"Anyways, this might take some time." And with that he buries himself into his work; getting this system up to speed will be his newest project.

"What does some time mean?" the man asks. The hacker just shrugs.

"Some time," he says. "We'll have to wait and see." He still feels like laughing, because this conversation is ridiculous. Why the hell is this guy asking how long he'll take? He decides he'll ignore the other.

.

Sometime later one of the mafia members enters the room in which Mello is currently lounging on one of the couches to tell him the hacker has finished setting up the system.

"Really now? It seems like you finally found someone remotely competent. Congratulations." His voice is laced with sarcasm and something that might be amusement if the smirk on his face is anything to go by.

The older man is almost cowering in fear and Mello is definitely amused by that. Though, why the other is not leaving is beyond him.

"Well, then bring him in." He likes the way they listen to his commands without question. But he sometimes wishes they would at least think them through. However, they are in no way intelligent enough to understand even the basics of his more complex ideas, so it's probably a lost cause.

.

The hacker enters the room and automatically scans his surroundings. Three couches all with a rather ridiculous (and horrible) zebra stripe pattern standing in a U-shape. Apart from those and a bar opposite of him the room is rather bare.

On the middle couch with his back to the young man sits someone. The person has blonde hair about chin length and rather slim shoulders clad in a leather top or a vest of some sort. That's all he can see, but it's enough to get his hopes up again.

Apart from that one there are a few other mafia members strewn around the room and the couches, though the middle one is free, safe for the blonde person.

He walks forward and sits at the edge of the same couch as the other.

A collective intake of breath around the room lets the hacker know that it definitely borders on sacrilege to sit on this couch. One more reason to do it.

The blonde man doesn't look at him. Not really anyways, but he draws his gun and points it at the hacker lazily.

"Give me one reason to not shoot you right now." The voice is calm and _he knows it._

_He knows that voice. And it's not a voice he's ever likely to forget._

"I brought chocolate." His own voice is equally calm, but he knows it changed more drastically than the others. He has started smoking after all.

Silence drapes its velvety folds over the room, as the mafia waits for the blonde's reaction, but he doesn't move.

The hacker does, though. He draws a chocolate bar out of his pocket and throws it in the direction of the only other person on the couch. He doesn't look, but the blonde catches anyways. It's a motion so perfectly coordinated it must have taken several to reach this level.

.

Mello's eyes flicker towards the hacker for a second but he can barely see his profile and so he just looks at Rod Ross and declares: "I like this one. What's his name again?"

"Mario" the mafia boss answers curtly.

A small amused almost smile (but it's more of a smirk, really) lifts the corners of the genius' lips.

"Mario? That's interesting." If he could only get a good look at this Mario…

"You think so?" the hacker asks. He seems amused as well, as if it's some kind of joke that only the two of them understand. It probably is, though how they know each other well enough to share inside jokes is beyond the others in the room.

Maybe, Rod Ross reasons, it's just something about their intelligence (because the hacker seems almost as smart as Mello) that makes them understand a joke that no one else gets.

The crack of Mello biting of a chunk of chocolate echoes through the room. The hacker gets up.

"I'll be looking at the system again; there are still some flaws in it."

The thick silence returns, as the mafia waits for Mello to react.

"Just make sure they're gone by tomorrow or you'll end up with a bullet between your eyes. I swear to God."

The hacker actually laughs at that.

"Where's the fire behind that threat, Mello?" His voice is shaking from laughter. Suddenly he runs from the room, Mello hot on his heels.

"Get back here, you bastard!" The blonde screams, but now that the hacker mentioned it some of the others can tell that he is clearly lacking the fire that is behind his usual threats.

.

Mello catches the other in front of the small kitchen and tackles him to the ground.

"Look at me, asshole!" he barks. "Look at me!"

He seems about to hyperventilate, so the other complies. His eyes hidden behind goggles seek Mello's and as they meet he relaxes. He may seem colder and more distant and he definitely is more violent and his temper is even shorter, but underneath it all he is still Mello. The same old Mello as before.

A fist connects with his cheekbone. Well, maybe not entirely the same.

"Ouch! Mello that hurt!" He's still laughing just a bit.

"It's not funny!" The other has definitely developed violent tendencies over the last four years, because his fist repeatedly connects with various body parts of the hacker.

"Hey, you're destroying all the chocolate bars!" That gets him to stop. His blue eyes are alight with a kind of childish joy that only the purest individuals manage to retain past the age of six. It's ironic that one of those can be found in the mafia.

The blonde gets up and brushes himself off. The young man still lying on the ground notices that he had his gun drawn the entire time, before getting up not bothering to wait for a hand to help him up that he knows the other will never offer.

"We'll talk later", he mutters into Mello's ear before heading towards the server room.

"You're lucky that gun wasn't loaded!" His shout echoes through the hallways. There is silence for a few seconds then he remembers something else.

"I want that chocolate!"

.

A few hours later the hacker is standing in the kitchen. He's peering into a rather large box filled with chocolate, chocolate and chocolate. Every kind you can think of. Better to be safe than sorry, seems to become his life motto.

"What do you have there?" The voice startles him. It's the first time in his life that he couldn't tell that the other was approaching.

"Chocolate. You're getting better at sneaking." He knows that the other knows that he was startled, but he'll pretend anyways.

"Nice. I've always been good at sneaking, just for your information." The hacker laughs a bit.

"Yeah right. And I'm blonde." Mello punches his shoulder lightly.

"There's nothing wrong with being blonde! I for one enjoy it. And quit laughing at me." His voice reveals nothing, but the other knows him well enough to tell that he is amused.

"I'd never laugh at you!" he says still grinning, "Do you still get mistaken for a girl?"

"Shut up, you bastard!" Is Mello seriously poking him with his gun now? Yes, he is. And unfortunately he is rather ticklish.

"Stop it! Stop it, please!" He's laughing again now. And the blonde doesn't seem to like it.

"Quit laughing! " His shouts are getting rather loud.

"Quit tickling me then!" He is breathless from laughing, but he manages to choke out these four words.

"I'm not tickling you!" The mafia boss responds.

"You are!"

They stare at each other for a few seconds and suddenly Mello is glad that it's in the middle of the night and everyone else is asleep (he should know he checked), because his reputation suffered enough already today.

Tension settles over the two of them as the mood is broken.

"Why are you here?" Mello asks his voice untypically quiet.

The other leans his head to the side, a gesture that's so familiar a smile threatens to break through the blonde's mask.

"I was searching you." He is so calm it's almost scary.

"But why the mafia?" His voice sounds slightly desperate and he despises himself for that. Mello doesn't _do_ desperate.

The hacker shrugs.

"I figured you wouldn't stay on the legal side and even if you did, it would have been easier to track you down if I didn't have to worry about what was legal and what wasn't."

"You were supposed to stay at… you know where." The mafia boss shakes his head and his blonde hair swishes through the air.

"You didn't honestly expect me to do that, Mello." His voice and his expression show the same disbelief.

"No. No I didn't, but you were supposed to stay safe, Goddammit!"

The hacker is taken aback by his companion's outburst and stares at him for a few seconds. His head is filled with dozens of disbelieving and sarcastic comments, but all of them seem inappropriate and so he lets them rest, instead settling for silence

The blonde's eyes flit around the room frantically searching for an escape. It's clear that he didn't want to say that, didn't want to reveal that piece of information.

The hacker places a hand on Mello's shoulder. The other is avoiding his eyes.

"Mello. Mello, look at me." The blonde hesitantly meets his eyes. "It's alright for you to be concerned. It's… actually, it's nice to know that you care, but I'm allowed to be concerned, too. And someone has to get you out of trouble. Besides, I missed you."

The other looks at him for a long time. His eyes are unreadable.

"What happened to your hair?"

The other laughs.

"That's a wig."

Mello shakes his head. He masks it quite good but there is a spark of relief still visible in his eyes.

"Shame. I thought you had finally gotten rid of that horrid color."

But the hacker knows him and he can see the relief in his friends eyes.

"Just admit that you love it and are relieved that I didn't die my hair."

His voice is teasing, but he really wants the other to admit it. They both know he won't.

"You're going to ruin my reputation."

And they both know he's not going to do that, but they also both know that they wouldn't care if he did.

"You know you love me, Mels."

And he's still teasing the most feared man in the building, but they both know Mello would never hurt him.

"Damn you, Matt. Damn you."

* * *

That one just didn't want to end...

**Reviews would be greatly appreciated.**


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